Maggie + Sam at Greenhouse Loft

A Lively Summer Wedding With Personal Touches

Maggie and Sam’s wedding at Greenhouse Loft was one of the very first we were lucky enough to produce when the world of events opened back up again! After postponing their date a full year and navigating an ever-changing landscape of reopening guidance, they were able to be married at one of our favorite sustainability-focused venues on Chicago’s West Side. They brought so much of themselves and their personalities to their day: doing photos with a group of their closest friends in lieu of a wedding party with “sides”, Maggie wearing her mom’s reworked dress, and possibly the most epic dance floor we’ve ever seen. Ed and Aileen were there to capture the day, and we’re so excited to share it with you here!

Their long engagement that became, well, a very long engagement

Another AFE couple introduced Jen to Maggie and Sam back in 2018 (!), and they all excitedly jumped into planning the couple’s 2020 wedding. Their engagement (which ended up lasting well over two years due to “you know what”) allowed ample time for Maggie, Sam and Jen (as well as Maggie’s mom, Katie) to become very close. The couple decided early into the pandemic that waiting was the best approach and we moved their wedding to June 2021.

However, up until a few weeks prior to this new date, it wasn’t looking like this wedding was going to happen. While we had already begun to help them with elopement plans, it suddenly became clear that vaccines would be available to everyone with enough time for guests to attend this affair safely. Maggie and Sam’s wedding was one of Jen’s first weddings of 2021 — after a year of not being able to do what she loved so much, it was totally magical to finally see this wedding brought to life.

Kind Words from the Bride

“We may have chosen the worst time to plan a wedding (2020), but we did choose the best wedding planner! We quickly fell in love with [Jen]; she was professional, fun, and took care of the most stressful parts of the planning process to make it a completely enjoyable experience for us. Her expertise truly shined through when the pandemic struck and we chose to move our wedding back to June 2021. Throughout quarantine, she was (virtually) by our side, helping us create plans based on multiple scenarios given all of the uncertainties. Ends up we were able to have a wedding and Jen came up with creative solutions to address any obstacles we came across. Our wedding was wonderful, thanks in large part to Jen being an absolute pro!” (Read Maggie’s full review and more on The Knot)

Three Things We Loved About This Wedding

• Maggie wore her mom’s wedding dress, beautifully rehabilitated and fitted perfectly by Ette Tailor
• The groom has spent his career in ecological restoration and was very involved in the selection of floral and greenery used for the wedding, working closely with Pollen to ensure that all was locally sourced. (And he provided us with the precise scientific classification of each element brought in!)
• We loved their “non-wedding party wedding party” — nothing official, just surrounded by their closest friends while getting ready and going out for photos in Humboldt Park.